funny

funny

Best. Paper. Ever.

I’ll admit it. I’m biased toward brevity. It’s hard to write succinctly, though. Blaise Pascal knew it (“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter”). Shakespeare knew it, too (“Brevity is the soul of wit”). You can imagine, however, how additionally difficult it is to succinctly write for science, a field defined by its details. So when I come across science writers practicing an economy of words, I’m doubly impressed.

Insert Clever Title Here

“Hell — is sitting on a hot stone reading your own scientific publications.” ~ Erik Ursin, fish biologist. One of my favorite journal articles is a little number called “How to write consistently boring scientific literature." Penned by Kaj Sand-Jensen at the University of Copenhagen, this piece is a glib editorial about technical writing…that was somehow published and promulgated by a technical writing source. (Brilliant!)